Isn’t there a rule somewhere that you can’t keep kicking when your opponent is already down?
Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 1 Episode 7 found the BAU’s newly reinstated access to the jet rescinded again.
The constant barrage from higher-ups against the BAU needs to stop.
It’s true that the BAU’s resources are pooled against their most significant threat.
They’ve rarely come up against a mastermind the likes of Sicarius, and with his extended reach, it’s not out of the question for them to be so concerned.
His reach is so expansive that seemingly unrelated cases can also be under his influence, which makes hunting him and stopping him the number one priority for the BAU.
Every case but one that the team has investigated so far this season had ties to Sicarius. Believing the brothers from Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 1 Episode 4 might have been urged into action by Sicarius wasn’t a stretch, even if it proved to be untrue.
Missing the importance of the case from the missing man and the two women that followed in a college town is regrettable, for sure, but it’s not surprising since the scope of the Sicarius investigation is so vast.
When common sense falls to the wayside, even when all evidence points to the contrary, I begin to get annoyed.
Bailey and Prentiss had to present their case that Benjamin Reese wasn’t Sicarius to the attorney general.
Attorney General: Let me get this straight. On my side, I’ve got Benjamin Reeves, who killed his mother, a SITTING US senator, next to a shipping container full of evidence. On your side, you have a free death row inmate who MAY have talked to a connection, first name, Cyrus, last name, unknown.
Prentiss: M’am, our profile says Sicarius is married with a possibility of children. Benjamin Reeves didn’t fit that. He was not Sicarius.
AG: Emily, that’s thin, and you know it.
Prentiss: [sighs] If the BAU cannot do its job, I have no choice but to tender my resignation.
Prentiss left off more information than necessary to say Reese was not Sicarius. It’s a lot more involved than just their profile. Sicarius is patient. He’s a careful planner who has recruited unknown numbers of people through Soar and other platforms. He’s a technical wizard.
Nothing in Benjamin Reese’s history — that we were shown, anyway — suggested he had the intelligence or patience to pull those kinds of strings.
He didn’t commit his crimes in a vacuum, either. Benjamin’s assistant, Rich, must have more information that Prentiss and Bailey could have drained to suggest that Reese’s scope was limited only to his immediate pursuits, inspired by vengeance for his mother.
Either Prentiss and Bailey didn’t present all of the evidence they had to the attorney general, or the attorney general is more interested in politics than saving lives.
Since Bailey felt pressured to let Benjamin go just to appease his bosses and spare the sitting senator a tantrum, I have to assume it’s the latter.
Surprisingly, she failed to connect that the only reason the senator was killed was the pressure on Bailey to preserve optics.
Yet, here we are again. The BAU is the ugly stepchild, not given the autonomy to do their jobs and follow their honed instincts because the optics are bad.
Since that’s been the driving force behind Criminal minds for many seasons, it’s beginning to wear thin.
The cases alone are extraordinary, and it would behoove the writers to allow the team to fly again before tripping them up with yet another political maneuver.
My best guess is that solving the Sicarius case will be the factor that sets them free, but government ineptness knows no bounds.
The good news is that, at least, Bailey is no longer against the BAU. Perhaps, now that he’s in their corner, he can help mediate how his fellow bureaucrats view the BAU.
As much as I’ve bitched about Bailey during Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 1 (Season 2 is coming!!), I can appreciate his redemption during “What Doesn’t Kill Us.”
His anxiety about presenting the case for Sicarius to the attorney general suggested that, as suspected, his bark was bigger than his bite. When he got a chance to stand with the BAU instead of standing over them, he proved himself worthy of both.
Alvez: You’re all gonna appreciate the irony of this because, uh, Bailey here, his job now depends on us doing ours.
Bailey: Yes, well, since our fates are tied together on this case, I took the liberty of preparing a briefing.
Rossi: OK, then. Wow us.
Even Rossi had to be surprised that Bailey did indeed offer some wow to the case at hand.
He proved to be an adept interviewer who could spin a yarn out of midair. A yarn that, eventually, was proven to be 100% true. It didn’t matter because how quickly he pulled out the story of his father and even his adamance that it wasn’t true showed he could land on his feet.
It was fun seeing Prentiss leading the whole shebang with Bailey at her side. They made a formidable team, and there are endless story possibilities that come from this development.
The case the team sat on wasn’t so far gone that nobody could be rescued. That’s not a comfort to Terry’s parents, but there is typically something more unusual about a case than just an adult going missing before the BAU is called in anyway.
In the two days since Grace went missing after Terry, the team was dealing with who the attorney general THOUGHT was Sicarius, so it’s strange she was already shaking fists of rage at the sky.
If anything had stood out and suggested the lengths to which the culprit would capture and torture his victims, the BAU would have considered the possibility he’d been corralled by Sicarius.
But they didn’t, and he wasn’t. Thankfully, the two women were saved, even if their lives would never be the same. It’s one thing to make a mistake such as they did and live to regret it. It’s another to have that regret turned on its ear as the catalyst for your torture and murder.
Evolution is making a chilling case about technology and its use to carry out horrific crimes.
So far, it doesn’t seem to follow a real-world example, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it were happening and the public isn’t being let in on the secret.
Because, like Bailey’s Libertarian father, who has a bunch of guns in case the government comes for them, this registered independent doesn’t place any faith in our national institutions.
After all this, the BAU is now in a position where they’ll have to sneak around to search for Sicarius.
The timing couldn’t be worse as Elias gets closer to cracking with each passing second of the day.
I’ve not made it a secret that I don’t believe he’s capable of loving, not even a family of his own creation. Killing Cyrus has left him even more profoundly wounded, seemingly because he thought the death would free him somehow.
Instead, he’s cracking at the seams, and his latest fantasies don’t include annoying neighbors but those he professes to love.
It’s sick to think of everyday aggravations giving you ideas to murder your family. It’s even worse when the person having those daydreams has no aversion to killing.
So far, Elias’s wife and kids are, in general, annoying. His girls whine a lot, and his wife uses platitudes to keep Elias in line. Her reaction to his invocation of the F word in relation to his family showed how much he tamps down to keep the peace.
He doesn’t even get to have an otherwise normal reaction to family annoyances, and that’s the kind of thing that pushes people too far.
Elias had reached the edge when Sydney said she knew what he was up to and wanted him to come clean.
Kudos to Elias for keeping the gun behind the kill kit. It was poised and ready, which surprised even him, I think.
I didn’t buy into his crocodile tears while saying goodbye to his family, even knowing that he would never reunite with them. He’s on the verge, and people on the verge make drastic mistakes.
The season is drawing to a close, and it’s time for the mistakes to begin so that the BAU can shut him down before he does too much more damage.
Frankly, any further kills should be laid at the attorney general’s feet. She’s going to have blood on her hands as much as Bailey has it on his for setting Benjamin free to kill his mother.
Now that the case is fake closed, does that mean that Garcia is free to continue her relationship with Tyler?
I’ve enjoyed everything about their fresh romance based on similar experiences, and the scene after the credits started made me laugh out loud.
Nerds are better in bed. Who knew?
So what about you? Let me know what you’re thinking about Bailey, the attorney general, Elias, Garcia, and any and everything else in the comments below!
Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She’s a member of the Critic’s Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on Twitter and email her here at TV Fanatic.